Minnesota State Mankato Iron Range Engineering students Matt Hudson and Eric Schaupp may have developed the next world-changing idea.

Matt Hudson and Eric Schaupp may have developed the next world-changing idea.

The pair of students are enrolled in Minnesota State Mankato's Iron Range Engineering program at Mesabi Range Community & Technical College. The program allows community college engineering students to earn four-year engineering degrees from Minnesota State Mankato while completing project-based research at a handful of Iron Range community colleges.

During the 2011 spring semester, the pair of seniors teamed up on an entrepreneurial project in which they were to identify a problem, and then design and engineer a product to solve it.

The pair of greenwise students decided immediately to target their efforts toward increasing global access to electricity. Their idea was to create a lightweight, portable generator that would run on any combustible fuel source.